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The first Biden-Trump debate will be in Atlanta, a city rich with political drama

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The first Biden-Trump debate will be in Atlanta, a city rich with political drama


After it appeared voters wouldn’t get the chance to see the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates square off this year, President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump last week agreed to two debates.

The first debate will take place June 27 in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s welcome news for the city of Atlanta, which was one of three finalists bidding to host the 2024 Democratic National Convention. It ultimately lost out to Chicago, but it wasn’t for lack of political drama within the state.

Atlanta became an epicenter of conspiracy theories and “election fraud” alleged by the Trump campaign during the 2020 election. Fulton County is now the site of the former president’s election inference case. And the battleground state carries major electoral weight, having flipped blue for the first time in nearly 30 years during the last presidential election.

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The location of the debate has history for Trump and will likely give him and Biden plenty to spar over.

More: Biden and Trump to debate in Atlanta, announces CNN

Trump’s history with Fulton County, Georgia

It’s fitting that the debate will be held at CNN’s studios, nestled in the center of Fulton County. The studios are less than a mile from the State Farm Arena, which served as a ballot processing site during the 2020 election.

State Farm Arena quickly became the subject of conspiracy theories about illicit votes spread by Trump and his associates on social media in the hours following the election. Trump claimed that surveillance video showed election workers staying after hours and removing “suitcases full of ballots” from under a table.

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The truth was much simpler. A plumbing issue at the arena had delayed Election Day operations, forcing some election workers to stay late to continue processing ballots. After a lengthy investigation by multiple agencies, it was determined that no fraud took place.

The Fulton County courthouse

Former President Trump is now intimately familiar with the Fulton County Courthouse, just half a mile from the site of the upcoming debate.After an investigation by the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office, Trump became the first former president to be indicted on felony charges in Georgia. He and 18 allies were charged with trying to interfere with the 2020 presidential election in Georgia after pressuring state officials to overturn the results.

Prosecutors in Georgia proposed August 5 as a start date for the trial.

Georgia’s potential as a swing state

The Georgia State Capitol, located a mile from the debate stage, played a significant role in the 2020 election.

It was where Biden was certified as the first Democrat to win Georgia in almost three decades, defeating Trump by nearly 12,000 votes.Georgia will remain a crucial swing state for the candidates in the 2024 election. Both Trump and Biden have made multiple stops to the Peach State during their reelection campaigns, showing just how important these votes are to the candidates.

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Atlanta, GA

Cancellations, delays continue at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport

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Cancellations, delays continue at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport


ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — The trouble for travelers at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport continued Sunday as rain persisted in metro Atlanta.

As of 5 p.m. Sunday, 487 flights have been delayed and 124 have been canceled.

TSA wait times have also ballooned; passengers going through the main checkpoint should expect to wait upwards of an hour, and those going through the north checkpoint should expect to wait more than 30 minutes.

The airport said, “The delays are the result of residual impacts from two ground stops issued on Friday, which created a temporary backlog in passenger volumes, combined with current TSA staffing constraints.”

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The delays added to a disastrous weekend for Hartsfield-Jackson. Travelers on Saturday described hourslong tarmac waits, missed connections and overnight strandings after storms triggered mass cancellations and delays.

The Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines received the bulk of travelers’ frustration. The airline released a statement to Atlanta News First addressing the tarmac delays.

“We apologize to our customers, as we know that a delay on the tarmac waiting for an arrival gate is frustrating. Delta people worked through severe weather challenges in ATL that drove gating constraints overnight,” the company said. “The safety of our customers and crew is our highest priority.”



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Atlanta, GA

Youth, served: Real Salt Lake pulls past Atlanta United to keep fast start

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Youth, served: Real Salt Lake pulls past Atlanta United to keep fast start


SANDY — Three games into the 2026 campaign and Real Salt Lake has a formula for success.

Spoiler alert: the kids are (still) all right.

Aiden Hezarkhani scored a goal for the second-straight week, rookie Sergi Solans added his first professional, and Real Salt Lake served its youth again en route to a 3-2 win over Atlanta United at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Fellow teenager Zavier Gozo also scored for Real Salt Lake, the Utah native’s first of the season after his breakout four-goal, three-assist campaign last year to help his home side improve to 2-1-0.

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Aleksei Miranchuk had a brace for Atlanta, which fell to 0-3 while being outscored 7-2 a year after struggling to a 5-16-13 campaign.

“It was a shootout,” RSL manager Pablo Mastroeni said. “This was one of those games that was super exciting. It’s a real credit to the group on both sides of the ball. I thought we were really deliberate … and defensively, we were great against a top attacking group.

“We knew it was going to be difficult. But the guys weathered the storm … and we challenged the group to dig deep, to defend our box, and manage the game the right way.”

Salt Lake, meanwhile, has won two of its first three matches — even with a shorthanded roster. The club lost Diego Luna (knee) and Victor Olatunji (eye) to injuries during the same training session before the season opener in Vancouver, and former U.S. international fullback DeAndre Yedlin picked up a hamstring injury last week.

But if adversity spawns opportunity, Real Salt Lake’s rising generation is taking advantage of either — or both. Give credit, too, to the veteran players for bringing along the youth that also include 17-year-old Luca Moisa — and not skip a beat.

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“It’s like a brotherhood,” Mastroeni said. “There’s no guy that’s bigger than the team.”

Gozo and Morgan Guilavogui nearly connected for a goal just 49 seconds into the match, but the newly signed Designated Player making his first start saw his shot tipped over the cross bar.

Instead, Guilavogui gave the visitors the early lead midway through the first half, slipping a brilliant through ball behind the defense to Solans for the clinical finish in the 23rd minute.

Solans was selected with the 30th overall pick of the 2025 MLS SuperDraft by Salt Lake, who traded $50,000 in general allocation money to the LA Galaxy in select the Spanish native.

But instead of signing forthright with the club, Solans elected to return to collect for one more year and the 22-year-old alumnus of Spain’s Girona FC academy returned to UCLA and scored a team-high 16 goals with six assists in 19 matches en route to All-American second-team honors and a program record-breaking third hat trick in the Big Ten Tournament final.

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“Sergi doesn’t necessarily have top-end speed,” Mastroeni said, “but he has top-end timing. When you threaten the back line, you don’t have to have the fastest speed. But you do have to have the right timing.

“You’ve got to make plays — and that’s what making plays looks like.”

Hezarkhani doubled the lead in the 27th minute, gaining possession of the ball in the final third with his chest off an angled touch from Solans before sliding a right-footed shot from the center of the box that put Salt Lake up 2-0.

It’s the second goal in as many matches for Hezarkhani, the 18-year-old academy alumnus who had six goals with four assists in 21 matches (19 starts) for Salt Lake’s third-division affiliate Real Monarchs a year ago.

Miranchuk pulled one back for the home side in the 38th minute, scoring Atlanta’s first goal of 2026 with one touch from Elias Baez from the center of the box to cut the deficit to 2-1.

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But Gozo finished a counter initiated by Philip Quinton and Justen Glad with his left less than two minutes later to push Salt Lake back in front 3-1 at halftime.

After a series of second-half introductions including the halftime debut of Utah native and former Corner Canyon High standout Griffin Dillon for RSL, Miranchuk added another for Atlanta in the 74th minute to cut the deficit to 3-2.

But Rafael Cabral made two saves on 16 shots faced to help the visitors hold on for their second straight win.

Real Salt Lake returns home next Saturday, March 14 to host Austin FC (7:30 p.m. MDT, Apple TV) before a road trip to San Diego FC.

The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.

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Atlanta, GA

On the set of "Scream 7"

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On the set of "Scream 7"


Ghostface is back…and this time, the call’s coming from Atlanta! The seventh installment of the blockbuster horror franchise “Scream” was filmed in Metro Atlanta, including at Midtown’s SCAD Film Studios. We’re checking out one of the film’s notable sets, which is now serving as a classroom for students. We’re also catching up with screen legend Kurt Russell, his real-life won Wyatt, Emmy Award winner Anna Sawai, and the rest of the cast of the Apple TV hit “Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,” which is back for a second season. Finally, we’re getting a first taste of Atlanta’s newest culinary hotspot, 17th & State Restaurant + Bar! Bon Appetit!



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